


the middle is the beginning

by bumsensei



Series: katostrophe [1]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fantasy, Multi, Original Character(s), Original Universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-13 15:22:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18471670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bumsensei/pseuds/bumsensei
Summary: Exiled for one of the most terrible crimes in Eijei's history, Orion Kato should hate the world. Why? Because before it all happened, he was a chairman of the High Council. He was a respected Archmage. He was married to the Princess of Indira. Most of all, because he was innocent of the crime he stood accused.However, there's no time for anger or revenge -- even if the world has betrayed him, its fate rests on his shoulders, and it will surely end without him.





	the middle is the beginning

**Author's Note:**

> "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how." - Friedrich Nietzsche

He woke up drenched in sweat, with a start so drastic that the figure beside him stirred awake, as well — which, as we learn more about this figure beside him, we will realize to be an occasion of rarity. But for now, let us return to the man currently unable to catch his breath as the sun peeks through the tattered curtains drawn before his single window, illuminating the dust in the air of this humble cove he called a room.

He was a man of no more than thirty or thirty-five in appearance, of inconsequential visage; an angular, defined facial structure was concealed by masses of dull, vaguely russet-colored hair. Tousled waves sat sloppily upon his head, and it would be generous to say that it was only like this when climbing out of bed. His jaw was strong and wide -- decidedly masculine, but it was difficult to visualize with a layer of scruff growing in even distribution across it. His brows were low-set and thick, giving him a permanently pensive expression, and coupled with his eyes, which were not quite brown and not quite grey as well as round and heavy-lidded, gave him a certain appearance of melancholy, as well. He had a long, straight nose, and a smatter of freckles across it from exposure to the sun. He was pale -- not _deathly_ so, but pale enough for him not to resemble the native people of Angora, the continent he currently resided in. He had an expression of exhaustion, even in his panic. All in all, he was a man who seemed as though he were _almost _attractive, but too unkempt to truly be so -- and so, he was often overlooked.__

Still, regardless of countenance, one could not ignore a man’s waking terror as it happened beside them. So, the lump to his right stirred a bit more, until a woman appeared from under the covers.

Incongruent to the previous description, there was nothing _almost_ beautiful about the dark-haired woman emerging from the blanket. Her skin, a contrast from his almost milky complexion, was a cool beige, and she had no damage from the sun; in fact, it was hard to find _any_ imperfection on her skin, be it a wrinkle or a blemish or anything else. Her eyes, a striking olive color, filled with sympathy. Raven hair fell in thick waves around her face, tendrils curling around her cheeks and being pushed back so she could better see the man breaking into a cold sweat beside her. She was his wife, and if it seemed as though she was profoundly more striking in beauty then he was, then it was because it was the truth. Those who saw them together would question how in the _world_ a man like himself married a woman like her; then again, few people ever saw them together.

“What is it?” Asked the woman, the beginnings of concern creeping into her eyes.

“They’re here, Indra.”

She sat up straighter, confusion mixing with her worry. “ — Here? Are you sure?”

“Listen,” was all that he said, holding a finger up as if to command silence.

The woman, now assumed to be Indra, listened. To the average ear, nothing could be heard. Yet, she listened, with her eyes darting about as if processing something. This only lasted for a few seconds; it wasn’t long before she rolled her eyes and fell back into the bed. “—I should have known it was another false alarm. Your jokes aren’t so funny. One of these days, when someone comes here, it really will be _you-know-who,_ and no one will believe you.”

“Well, I dread the arrival of this one just as much as I do the other,” he replied, smiling affectionately at the lump that scolded him.

“Just do as he says, my love, or send him away — whichever gets us back to sleep soonest.”

“And here I thought you were a warrior,” He began, leaning in and sifting through fabric to steal a kiss. “Is that why I’ve been winning all of our _wrestling matches,_ lately?”

Her lips curved into a wry smile, and she seemed half tempted to avoid his kiss. Instead she allowed him to, and even made it seem like she enjoyed it, but pulled away quickly to return his quip with one of her own: “My skills are not for subduing a wayward tax collector. And if you’ve won anything -- “ She said, yanking his half of the covers away from him and onto herself, “ -- it’s because I’ve allowed you to.”

Such mornings were not especially out of the ordinary, for this man and his wife. In fact, without context, it all seemed quite mundane. However, it was anything but, and if this morning was ordinary, it was assured that everything else was most certainly not.

The man pulled on a worn shirt and a cloak, to ward off the cold the forest breeze would bring in as he made his way out of the bedroom, through the hall, and through the confines of his shop. It was a meager business, and it looked about populated when it was closed as it did open -- that is to say that customers were a rarity for this place. However, it was hardly out of scorn for the public, but rather a matter of location.

The tax collector was coming from Valla, a small village nearby. Valla was a settlement consisting of only a few hundred people, situated on the eastern shores of Angora. Of course, almost every village was on a shore of Angora -- the continent was an oblong island, making up for a rather small width with a massive length, extending for thousands of leagues. It was situated in the temperate waters that composed the Eastern Sea, and with Passaj to the far north and Morgal in the far south, most travelers from either continent stopped on this land before embarking for the largest continent towards the West: Gondowan. This made Angora something of a beacon of trade, and having no immediate monarch (as they deferred to the Grand Archmage as Emperor), quite an appealing continent to the masses of merchants who lived there. It was difficult _not_ to have some form of success in Angora, simply because there never seemed to be someone who wasn’t in need of something.

One would then be forced to wonder why _this_ shopkeeper had opened his shop in the middle of the Valla Forest, where little more than a tattered sign pointed customers in its direction, and when there were still plenty of uses for a shop in the village itself. Well, that is just what the tax collector, whose was called Sylvio, endeavored to find out.It was Sylvio's three  _bangs_ on the door that had prompted the shopkeep's violent start, and it was at the conclusion of three more bangs that the door creaked open, and he was left with the tired, rather plain-looking man who we described to the readers earlier.

He seemed a bit stiff with surprise, but he collected himself quickly. " -- Is this the shop I was told about?" He asked.

"That would depend," Began the other, "On which shop you've heard about."

"I was told of a shop a ways into the forest, owned by a man fitting your description."

"Then it simply  _must be,_ mustn't it?"

Sylvio looked up at the dingy sign hanging up above the shop. ' Kato Shop ', it read. Quite simple. "Kato," He began. Were he a bit younger, that title wouldn't have struck anything in him. But he was just old enough, about forty or forty-five, and so the name reminded him of something. " -- Kato, like the former Archmage Kato?"

A chill seemed to pass between Sylvio and the shopkeep, and for a moment, his grey-brown eyes looked so intensely upon the other that they seemed to bore into him. But all of a sudden, the shopkeeper laughed, and it was only then that Sylvio smiled sheepishly and chuckled politely in response. " -- the Dreaded Kato? Ah, listen to you!" Wheezed the shopkeeper, fanning himself as if to try comical tears. "Yes, I'm that criminal, and I haven't even  _bothered_ to take a fake name in my exile."

Sylvio had to admit, the idea was silly. After all, no one had seen or heard of the infamous criminal since his disaster of a trial some years ago. People were afraid to even say his name -- Emperor Kraden, the Grand Archmage, never liked for his  _taboos_ to be spoken into existence after he wiped them out. No, no -- Archmage Kato was too smart, for that. Wherever he was, he surely changed not just his name, but his face, and was lurking in the shadows somewhere, planning his revenge upon the High Council for thwarting his plans.

Furthermore, Archmage Kato was a monster -- everyone knew that after the Infernal Crimes, he'd turned into a monster, with sharp teeth, and demon eyes. His taste for the food of man no longer sated him, so he'd resorted to eating flesh, and his appetite was endless. He'd become a beast, through and through, and this shopkeeper was no beast. He was simply a man with tattered robes and ink stains on his shirt, who looked a bit too pale and a bit too tired to be remembered for anything more than being rather  _disheveled_ in appearance. Angoran merchants sold themselves as well as they sold their wares -- it was no wonder this man's business looked empty. That, and, well -- the name was  _quite_ unfortunate. Even if this merchant's name  **was** Kato, to be even  _associated_ with the memory of the Demon Mage Orion Kato could kill  _anyone's_ business, for those who even remembered who that was. Maybe there was no legal need for him to change his shop name, but Sylvio was debating recommending it.

The shopkeeper took that moment to look at him a bit sadly, which discomforted Sylvio. They were strangers, and yet here he gazed upon him with regret. He could think on his odd manner no more -- before he had time to react, the merchant raised his hand and tapped the tax collector's forehead, a spark of light springing from his fingers and dissipating across the man's brow. 

"You've forgotten me," Said the merchant, in a soothing tone. "You'll turn around and go home. When you get home, you will sleep for half of an hour. And when you wake, you will think that you've overslept. Every time someone tells you of this shop, you'll find it impossible to remember. It will slip your mind. If you pass this shop in the forest, you will think it is your first time here, every time you come, and you'd never tax a man on your first visit."

Sylvio looked at him blankly, and blinked. His eyes were open, but he seemed to be in a dream, and without another word, he turned and began walking back towards the village. 

This man, who could only be assumed to be Kato, heaved a sigh of melancholy. "Forgive me, friend." He murmured, closing the door, "But I mustn't be found, not even by you."

This man didn't act like the dread mage Orion Kato; he was too quiet, too plain - looking, too soft -spoken. 

And yet, he was the very person Sylvio referred to, the very owner of the name that he said with such fear.

He returned to the bedroom, only to find Indra sitting on the edge of the bed. She stood as soon as he entered, and immediately sensing the sadness that had swept over him, approached to hold his face in her hands and brush a few haphazard curls away from his eyes. He looked down at her, a moment, his hands rising to settle over hers. Gently, he squeezed her fingers, and in that instance he closed his eyes tightly, his face twisting in pain. 

"Did you send him away, my love?" She whispered.

"I had to." He replied, his voice low and hoarse. "We don't have the money to pay him. And if we don't have the money to pay him, he'll contact the Lord of the village, who will surely try and have me arrested, and I cannot waste a day in prison. I need to work."

"I know," Indra soothed, tilting her head and stroking his cheek with her thumb. "But I also know it hurts you to use your magic on people's will, like that."

Orion looked away, suddenly, unwilling to answer; why should he? She was right. That act, so simple and surely one that would go unnoticed by anyone else who would have done the same, would sadden the man for the rest of the day. 

Indra, however, seemed determined to forbid it. " -- You had to. You know you had to. This shop ... it's a cover. It's just a way to buy some time before --"

"--Before he finds us." Finished Orion with a sigh.

"Then you also know why you cannot spend even a  _day_ wasting time in prison. Because when -- not  _if,_ because he  **will** find us --"

"Yes. I know." Interrupted Orion. "When he finds us, the world ends."


End file.
